Resolved Replace Character Names Function [Resolved, alternative addon found]

[Marunikyu]

Don't you hate it when a character is named... Weirdly? "Dream, Avian, Randidly"...
What if Scribblehub had a feature where you can double click a name, and then have the equivalent of 'Replace All' function with another name of your choosing, which is active for the entire novel? (Only for the user obviously)
In terms of data size or programming there ought to be no problems.
Thanks
Edit: my #17 post posts solution for firefox users. Sorry for everyone else. Other browsers may have just worse equivalents, didn't check. If someone posts links to good addons for other browsers, I'll eventually edit this post.

 

[LostLibrarian]

Character names are also part of the author's vision for the story. So this is a feature that directly allows user to "meddle" with the author's intent.
I can understand the frustration as I also have novels where I scream at the naming sense, but I think a lot of authors would be turned off by such features...

 

[YuriDoggo]

Imagine reading a comment like "I like when Bob did this" and you're just like "who's bob?"

 

[Saileri]

Wow. Really? I would have never expected a thread like that. For the most part, there's almost always some reason behind the character names. Imagine switching them and then the planned revelations happen and you are just like "wtf, that does not make any sense".

I will stay with the originals.

Also. That's kinda part of the author's style and idea for the story. Replacing that with your own feels wrong.

Also also. I don't know. The examples you provided seem normal to me. Maybe the last one might be situational if I were to choose it for something.

 

[AliceShiki]

there's almost always some reason behind the character names.

You overestimate how much thought authors put into certain details...

Like... Geez, do you really think I will bother with looking up meaning of names and stuff when naming my characters? I don't even know what my own name means.

I just try choosing names that I like and that's it. If I'm out of ideas I just roll a Fantasy Name Generator until I get a name that sounds nice... And let's not talk about place names, 90% of the time I just join two words together and make the City of Whitewind, or the Dukedom of Mudrock or whatever.

 

[Saileri]

You overestimate how much thought authors put into certain details...

Like... Geez, do you really think I will bother with looking up meaning of names and stuff when naming my characters? I don't even know what my own name means.

I just try choosing names that I like and that's it. If I'm out of ideas I just roll a Fantasy Name Generator until I get a name that sounds nice... And let's not talk about place names, 90% of the time I just join two words together and make the City of Whitewind, or the Dukedom of Mudrock or whatever.

Right. I might have made a bit of an overstatement by using too strong words. I kinda come from the community where we create a lot of DnD characters, both PC and NPC, for campaigns and whole stories, and I'm used to choosing a name with some meaning.

On the other hand, it's not really that scarce. Yes, it really may depend mostly on the author, but there are areas, like for example fantasy genre, where there might be a lot of variables leading to meaningful names, like some beliefs, traditions, race characteristic naming sense, etc. I also use the names I really like for a lot character in the foreground, but I still consider if they fit them in some way, since readers will have to stick with them for the whole story. For more occasional characters, when I'm out of ideas, naturally using some namegen is the way.

 

[AliceShiki]

Right. I might have made a bit of an overstatement by using too strong words. I kinda come from the community where we create a lot of DnD characters, both PC and NPC, for campaigns and whole stories, and I'm used to choosing a name with some meaning.

On the other hand, it's not really that scarce. Yes, it really may depend mostly on the author, but there are areas, like for example fantasy genre, where there might be a lot of variables leading to meaningful names, like some beliefs, traditions, race characteristic naming sense, etc. I also use the names I really like for a lot character in the foreground, but I still consider if they fit them in some way, since readers will have to stick with them for the whole story. For more occasional characters, when I'm out of ideas, naturally using some namegen is the way.

Oh yeah, there are definitely authors that try giving meaning to names! I just don't think it's the norm overall... >.>

 

[BenJepheneT]

Hauling in an entirely new reading feature off a possibility that a minority of readers that think "Dream" is a weird name.

Not the lowest low, but holy shit is this low.

 

[binarysoap]

Trying to implement this will yield interesting results, especially if you have issues with a name like "Dream," since dream is an actual word. SH will have no way to differentiate whether the word dream would refer to the name or the noun.
I.E. if a character says "Dream of me," it'll be replaced with something like "Bob of me."

Now unlike almost everyone else in this thread who basically is like "What the heck is wrong with you," this feature would actually be useful, albeit low priority. Also, the way I would use it is not the reason the OP had, but for more humorous purposes. The story has a villain? Why not rename them someone you hate IRL? The story is a wish-fulfillment harem novel? Let's change the MC's name to your own name, and then the harem members as your favorite waifus/husbandos. You're reading a straight romance story, but you want it to make it full on yuri? Change the male lead's name to a girl's name and replace all instances of he/him to she/her.

Why limit it to names actually? You could replace all nouns with something else. For example, in Harry Potter, what if you changed all instances of the word "wand" with something like, "dick" for shits and giggles? You'd get extremely interesting lines, like, "The dick chooses the wizard" or Ron saying "My dick almost snapped in half." Or having characters pull out their dicks when about to battle. The possibilities are endless!

It could even be used more practically too. Say you are not of fan of weeb (Fie upon thee!). You could replace all instances of onii-chan with big bro or something. Or maybe you are a weeb and want to replace all instances of "teacher" with "sensei"

Anyways, there are plenty of interesting uses for this feature, and for everyone disgusted by even the sheer thought of changing an author's shitty naming senses, remember, the author won't know and if the name really has any special significance, it's only the reader who will be affected. But if the reader hates the naming so much that they want to change, it's a small price to pay anyways, and even if it wasn't, it's their choice.

TLDR; This is not a bad feature, why is everyone shitting on it?

 

[yansusustories]

Personal thoughts aside, I'm wondering about the practical side of this. In the OP it was mentioned that:

In terms of data size or programming there ought to be no problems.

but I'm wondering: The number of users on the site grows. People could - especially if we take into consideration what @binarysoap just suggested - replace every single name of characters, places, items, etc. in every single novel they read which could be hundreds as well. Is the amount of data needed really that small when all of that accumulates?
Like, we're probably not talking about exchanging the names just for a single sitting until the tab is closed or the user logs out. This would likely be data stored for every single user that's tied to their amount. (And for how long? Forever?) I could imagine that this could grow quite a bit in the long run. If there are users who register, use the site for a while, play around with the feature, and then leave, there would even be data stored that has no use for anyone and might even take away from the space necessary for other features.

Adding onto that, there's another detail that ties into this:

Imagine reading a comment like "I like when Bob did this" and you're just like "who's bob?"

So, yeah, what about the comments? Would the name or whatever be changed there as well? Will every instance of 'Bob' be changed to the original word for the other readers to make sure their reading experience isn't compromised. And yes, for some people, the comments are part of the reading experience.

So, my question would be how you imagine the details of this to work out? Because right now, this really doesn't sound well-thought-out to me.

 

[Marunikyu]

TLDR; This is not a bad feature, why is everyone shitting on it?

My man, you have ideas.
I expected some salt, but some people outright want to find me, and beat me up. LOL.
Imagine if I said I wanted to change "X skin" to "Y skin" and "X-ese" (country affiliation) to "Y-an" to change the race of all characters in a novel LMAO. Unlimited salt would drown me.

but I'm wondering: The number of users on the site grows. People could - especially if we take into consideration what @binarysoap just suggested - replace every single name of characters, places, items, etc. in every single novel they read which could be hundreds as well. Is the amount of data needed really that small when all of that accumulates?

Adding onto that, there's another detail that ties into this:

So, yeah, what about the comments? Would the name or whatever be changed there as well? Will every instance of 'Bob' be changed to the original word for the other readers to make sure their reading experience isn't compromised. And yes, for some people, the comments are part of the reading experience.

So, my question would be how you imagine the details of this to work out? Because right now, this really doesn't sound well-thought-out to me.

So 1) data here is just text. Plain text, that is formatted for a script. My avatar is small (20 kb) but 1kb is 1000 letters. 20 thousand letters is hundreds upon hundreds of names. And it's not like everyone would use this feature.
2) Comments thing is easy to resolve, just use the same script that changes names in the text, but reversed for the comments you post.

Yeah, the real issue is exactly for a ****** name like Dream, it would be changed in abnormal instances. In that case, I'd give up changing that name, it's too much having an AI doing this kind of work.

This feature could easily be a browser add-on for all websites instead. It's just find&replace. With a click you could turn the script on/off. You could have multiple scripts for different situations. Maybe someone could program this for GreaseMonkey? That'd be neat.

For a greasemonkey script, you'd have an interface where you click, add script, then you'd have "change character string" and "change name", where change char string isn't case sensitive (but keeps the current one) and change name is case sensitive. Then you type either a few words or a name to replace, then the replacement. Then whenever you type something, the script replaces inversely with the saved strings.
In this case, data ""issue"" is in the hands of the user.
I guess it's weird and too much to ask Scribblehub to make a greasemonkey/somethingelse script. Maybe someday someone who can program will read this and be really into it, do it, thus changing literature forever.

 

[AliceShiki]

TLDR; This is not a bad feature, why is everyone shitting on it?

My only thoughts when reading this thread were: "Wow, such a pointless feature."

I'm pretty sure it will never get implemented because it's plain and simply not worth Tony-chan's time.

 

[mostlyharmfulll]

While I don't think that the feature itself is bad, I doubt it would be worth the time to implement it. Barely anyone would use it. I for example would only use it now and then to give characters I don't like stupid nicknames for fun, but that's all.

 

[YuriDoggo]

Not sure why the toxicity when we're (edit: supposed to be) better than this. No need to sling around insults when you can just say "this isn't a good idea because X and Y" in a civilized manner without riddling your comments with profanity and ad hominens.

Edit Reason: Because we're apparently not.

 

[Marunikyu]

Go buck wild my dude.

Thanks a lot bro!
I use Mozilla, but it's ported there as well. After trying out everthing, this is the best addon I found:
https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/foxreplace/?src=search
FoxReplace is way better for me.

Tutorial on how to change a character's name :
Click addon button, click "Apply Automatic Substitutions" then click "Options". Click "add substitution list", name it "ScribbleHubBadNames". Double click it, click url, for an url like this:

https://www.scribblehub.com/read/NUMBER-NOVELNAME/chapter/NUMBER/

add only this: https://www.scribblehub.com/read/NUMBER-NOVELNAME/chapter/
Click "Substitutions", then it's a nobrainer. Don't forget "Match Case" and keep "Text" for names so that [NAME's] or [NAMEy] also changes.

Alright, with this I declare the Thread [Resolved]. Thank you everyone for your help/suggestions. Although there is a small benefit for the same feature to be implemented, at least for firefox users, it's tiny.
For triggered authors, know now that anyone could secretly be replacing your naming sense with their own. Thanks, bye bye lol